Not moved since arriving yesterday although some fun today.
When we went to check-in yesterday we introduced ourselves to Immigration just on quarter to five. They shut at that time so told us to come back tomorrow morning. Up early this morning ('cause we wanted to get some fresh croissants from local bakery as well) and presented ourselves at the authorities (again). This is all done on-line so first I have to register me and the yacht. All pretty good so far. Then I have to enter our arrival, which all went well too. Then, as I was near completion I realized the the guy where we checked-out of Deshaise (at Guadaloupe) had printed-off someone els's checking-out/departure documents. This ain't according to plan. In these parts you have to have check-in documents and check-out documents and when checking-in they require the check-out document from island where departed from. Oops me thinks....... I have someone else's document so we don't have one for ourselves for when we departed Guadaloupe yesterday morning. "Oh shit" I'm thinking, how can
I talk my way out of this one? (Customes & Immigration have been know to refuse entry without the correct documents and Antigua have been known to fine skippers sums like $5,000 for meagre offences). "Tell the truth"............. and play it by ear! I explained what had led up to the mistake, the printer wasn't working, I was asked to tell the guys when I was ready to print-off the document in Deshaise, they saved the document to a USB stick and inserted it into another computer and printed it off, added their official stamp and asked me to sign & pay for it (IN THE DARK) so I did and proiceeded to put it safe (WITHOUT READING IT). At this stage, you could say the look the Customes Officer gave me was one of amusement and he accepted our check-in document from Saintes, and just asked me to add our departure date to it. Throughout, Sue wondered why I had not checked our document when we checked-out at Deshaise but was plainly very happy with the overall outcome. We completed our new
check-in with Immigration and paid required fees to the harbour authority. All done & dusted, we are now officially in Antigua. Ah yes... nearly forgot.... just before we departed to check-in we were visited by the Coast Guard, who wanted to know why we were still flying a yellow duster (Q-flag). We know how to get noticed!!!
Next we went to the bakery. No croissants left! As a suitable 'replacement' we decided to go have an iced coffee at the posh restaurant 'Admiral Inn' at the old sail loft, overlooking the mangroves. That was very good. Now it's half twelve and we're walking back to where we have left our RIB and we walks past another restaurant 'Copper & Lumber' when we got a sniff of some good curry. At that we both decided we would have curry for lunch. Problem now was finding the source of the curry smell! Took us ten or fifteen minutes following the trail with our noses, even to walking back to the Admiral Inn to see if we could sniff it there! Eventually we sniffs it strongest at the Copper & Lumber restaurant so goes in and asks. Bulls-eye. They has a 'West Indian Roti' on the menu so we ask for a table and orders 2 x curry roti & 2 x rum punch. We now now a curry roti is chicken curry wrapped in a wrap, which tasted as good as the smell and the rum punch went well too.
Spent remaining part of afternoon enjoying sunshine and swimming round Ticketeeboo. A very pleasant day too!
Sunday 16th: Up this morning at first light (Sue's idea) quick shower & cuppa'tea then offin RIB to the dinghy dock then walked up to Fort Berkeley, where we sat and had pick-nick breakfast for an hour or so. We then did another walk across the peninsula towards Pigeon Bay, which is in Falmouth Bay (next bay round and where we're planning to visit tomorrow). Hence, went far enough to take couple of pic's then returned to wait our=tside the bakery. The second part of Sue's plan was to be early birds at the bakery to get some freshly baked croissants. Not today though! Bakery is shut on Sunday! Never mind, t'was a lovely early morning stroll and we have the whole day ahead of us. Liverpool kick-off in half an hour so here's hoping for a good result today?
Congratulations Andrew, who now has his first amateur radio licence callsign m6eeg .
Happy Sunday to R,M,S & T as well J,P,F & S xxxxxxxx .............. Nanna Sue & G-dad Alan are home in less than 2 weeks now!
Ticketeeboo MMSI 235071989 Callsign 2CED3, Ham callsign = m0hng
At 15/03/2014 23:58 UT our position was 17°00.28'N 061°45.67'Whttp://blog.mailasail.com/ticketeeboo
www.winlink.org/dotnet/maps/positionreportsDetail.aspx?callsign=m0hng